The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) can proceed with its lawsuit against Boeing, alleging that the company misled pilots regarding the safety of the 737 MAX model. This decision comes after a pair of fatal crashes involving the aircraft, which led to its grounding.
The court dismissed Boeing’s argument that the Railway Labor Act, a federal law governing airline and railroad labor relations, barred the union from pursuing their claims in state court. Boeing had contended that the lawsuit required the interpretation of collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with Southwest.
In its ruling, the justices sided with SWAPA, stating that the union’s claims could be addressed without delving into the terms of the CBAs, thereby not conflicting with the Railway Labor Act.
Justice Jeff Boyd wrote for the court, “We need not and do not decide here whether SWAPA’s contentions are true. Those are factual issues regarding SWAPA’s and its members’ mindsets and motives that are yet to be decided. But such ‘purely factual questions’ do not ’require a court to interpret any term of a collective-bargaining agreement.’”
Representatives from both Boeing and SWAPA did not respond to requests for comment following the court’s decision.
When the 737 MAX was introduced in 2011, SWAPA was operating under a CBA established in 2006. Initially, Southwest Airlines purchased the new 737 MAX models, but the union’s pilot members refrained from flying the aircraft, claiming it was not required by their agreement.
In 2016, SWAPA’s new CBA with Southwest explicitly indicated that pilots would be required to operate the updated model before Boeing suspended the planes.
Federal investigations revealed that Boeing deliberately concealed information from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about potential safety issues with the 737 MAX, including a mechanism that could cause the plane’s nose to dip during critical phases of flight like takeoff and landing. This decision was made to avoid incurring additional costs for pilot training related to the new model.
The FAA later found that this mechanism likely played a role in the crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which tragically resulted in the deaths of 189 people in 2018 and 157 people in 2019, respectively.
In response to these incidents, SWAPA filed a lawsuit against Boeing, asserting that the company misrepresented and failed to disclose crucial safety information about the 737 MAX, thus interfering with its business relationship with Southwest Airlines. SWAPA contends that as a result of Boeing’s actions, pilots at Southwest, the largest operator of the model, suffered significant financial losses when the aircraft was grounded.
The union stated, “Had SWAPA known the truth about the 737 MAX aircraft in 2016, it never would have approved the inclusion of the 737 MAX aircraft as a term in its CBA, and agreed to operate the aircraft for Southwest.”
The Texas Supreme Court’s ruling allows the case to return to a lower trial court for further proceedings, signaling a critical step for the pilots in their ongoing battle with Boeing.
In a dissenting opinion, Justices Jane Bland and Rebeca Huddle raised concerns over whether SWAPA had the authority to file the lawsuit on behalf of over 8,000 union members.
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